Rapscallion Soda
Unit 10, Eglington Trading Estate,
30 Cumberland St,
Glasgow
What is it: Rapscallion is the brainchild of Gregor Leckie, who after years working as a bartender was fed up with the array of sugary soft drinks on offer behind the bars he worked in. He had always had an interest in flavour so decided to create his own soda right here in Glasgow.
That was back in 2016, after a successful “pop-up” trialling his natural soda gave him the impetus to go ahead and create the Rapscallion brand. The first few years were a big learning curve in achieving a consistent level of quality, as well as competing with the big brands. Like many new brands there was many occasions when the proverbial towel was almost thrown in but he kept pushing and developing the sodas with the help of friends and family.
This year saw Rapscallion move into a new 1500sq ft railway arch warehouse just south of the River Clyde. This has helped them expand production with the addition of a new canning machine, as well as collaboration with spirit brands who want to work with the best sodas around.
The brand: Rapscallion prides itself for “making the best tasting drinks without using artificial crap”, and being committed to real flavour from real ingredients, while not messing up the planet.
This is more of a challenge than it sounds, but luckily for them the world is changing, and more and more people are willing to pay a bit more knowing that their product has been made with authenticity, honesty and our health in mind. The other positive thing is that it looks cool and the branding and messaging is on point.
The drink: The core range comprises something for all tastes. Ninja Soda, is “dry and delicate but with a fiery kick to the throat” comprising of cold pressed ginger, lemon zest, cardamom, cassia & pimento. The Burnt Lemon is “a juicy wee tart – think lemon meringue pie” with charred lemon zest, lemon juice, coriander seed and a touch of vanilla. My favourite is the Dry Lime, described as “clean & sharp as a tack” with lime rind, lime juice and kaffir lime leaf.
You will also find seasonal cans such as the Pink with Scottish rhubarb, pink grapefruit zest & Szechuan pepper.
You will find Rapscallion in a lot of bars, restaurants and cafes all over Glasgow as well as on its website, www.rapscallionsoda.com, and I would recommend you to give it a try. Not only will you be supporting a new Scottish business but you will also be drinking
one of the best soft drinks around.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here